Judge Your Sources

Not all sources are equal

A peer-reviewed journal article, a government statistics report and a viral WhatsApp message can all "say" something about the same topic. They aren't equally trustworthy.

"Use with care" doesn't mean "don't use". A good newspaper report is fine for recent events, but for a statistic, cite the original source the newspaper used.

Five checks for any source

1. Who wrote it? A named expert or organisation, or nobody?
2. Where is it published? A journal, a university, a government, or an unknown site?
3. When was it published? Is it recent enough for your topic? Statistics from 2012 don't describe today.
4. Why does it exist? To inform, or to sell, campaign or get clicks?
5. What evidence does it give? Data and references, or just claims?

A quick example. A page titled "10 Shocking Facts About Nigerian Students" on a site called naija-gist-daily.com has no author, no date, and says "studies show 80% of students sleep less than 5 hours" without a link. Who? Nobody. Where? A gossip site. When? Unknown. Why? Clicks (the headline gives it away). Evidence? None. Five red marks: don't use it, and don't repeat the 80%.

Read laterally, like a fact-checker

Professional fact-checkers don't decide whether a website is trustworthy by reading it closely; a well-designed fake looks convincing. They leave the page and open new tabs to see what others say about it. This is called lateral reading:

• Search the organisation's or author's name. Who are they? Who funds them?
• Search the claim itself. Do reliable sources report the same thing?
• Find the original source of a statistic, not a page repeating it.

A handy habit is SIFT: Stop; Investigate the source; Find better coverage; Trace claims to the original.

Trace a claim: a worked example

This message is circulating on WhatsApp:

*BREAKING*  CBN says inflation hit 60% last month!!! Prices will double
before December. Forward to everyone you love. 🙏🏾

Tracing it:

1. Stop. ALL CAPS "BREAKING", "forward to everyone" and no link: classic red flags.
2. Investigate the source. It says "CBN", but there's no link to anything the CBN published.
3. Find better coverage. Search inflation rate Nigeria and look at reputable newspapers' latest reports. They quote a monthly inflation figure, and say where it comes from.
4. Trace to the original. Nigeria's official inflation rate is published by the National Bureau of Statistics in its monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, at nigerianstat.gov.ng, not by the CBN. Open the latest report and read the headline figure yourself.

Whatever the real figure is this month, you now have it from the organisation that actually measures it, with a date. That's what goes in an assignment.

Red flags

• Headlines in CAPITALS, or written to make you angry or afraid.
• No author, no date, no sources.
• A statistic with no link to where it came from.
• A web address imitating a real one, such as an extra word, letter or a strange ending.

Try it